What this means for learners
Atayal and Maung share 16 sounds — roughly 59% of Maung's inventory overlaps with Atayal. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 8 sounds found only in Maung represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Atayal speakers. The adult brain tends to map unfamiliar sounds onto the closest native equivalent — a process that produces the characteristic "accent" of a second-language speaker. Learning to hear and produce these sounds as distinct requires focused ear training, not just repetition.
Conversely, Atayal has 11 sounds not used in Maung. Native Maung speakers learning Atayal will face the mirror-image challenge with these sounds.
Phoneme inventories from PHOIBLE. Data reflects one documented inventory per language; some variation exists across dialects and sources.